Hacking Is multirom support just a convenience/non-essential option?

[Berabouman]

Sorry for making such a newbie post, but I wanted to know. If I'm not mistaken you can already add multiple ROMs to a single SD card right? The only issue right now is having to exit out completely from the firmware in order to play another game?

If so, then multirom just makes things a bit faster?

There is nothing wrong with that, speed is good. Just wanted to clear things up because I want to get a cart soon (probably Gateway) and wanted to know what exactly multirom added to the table.

 

[Hellz92]

Right now you can only put 1 rom on a microsd by writing it to the microsd as an image. Multi rom will add the ability to use the micro sd as a fat32 storage medium, and then you can just drag and drop whatever you want on it.

 

[Xexyz]

Gateway currently works with one rom at a time. It is flashed to the SD instead of drag and drop. Multirom adds the ability to drag and drop 3ds games, and choose them from a list to play, on one SD card.
ninja'd

 

[aXXo]

Multi-rom would allow everyone to actually put those 16Gb microSD cards to good use. But people only play 2-3 games on the 3DS at a time anyway, so I guess it helps people who don't always have access to a computer or multiple SD cards. Besides, it would cut down on the wear and tear to the microSD card since you won't have to format it so many times.

 

[escherbach]

and of course, multi-rom allows multi-save-states

 

[stanleyopar2000]

lucky you people have free 3DS emulation after all (this early in the 3DS's life)....let alone being stuck to one game.

 

[stomp_442]

and of course, multi-rom allows multi-save-states

aren't the saves on the 3dS sd card for most of the games except for the nand saves?

 

[escherbach]

aren't the saves on the 3dS sd card for most of the games except for the nand saves?

You mean the big sd card that goes in the side of the 3DS? I'm not sure - but if so then the multi-save-state issue is diminished - but even so, it's preferable to have the roms and save states on the same single micro sd-card.

But I guess the save states will be trivial once they work out the multi-rom loader

 

[pyromaniac123]

lucky you people have free 3DS emulation after all (this early in the 3DS's life)....let alone being stuck to one game.

Flashcarts aren't free.

 

[stomp_442]

You mean the big sd card that goes in the side of the 3DS? I'm not sure - but if so then the multi-save-state issue is diminished - but even so, it's preferable to have the roms and save states on the same single micro sd-card.

But I guess the save states will be trivial once they work out the multi-rom loader

I'm sure I can currently play a 3DS with the white card, and the game save goes to the internal 3DS SD card. But it would be nice if the game saves went to the microSD card. But on the other hand, the game save will always be on the SD card which is nice, then I don't gotta worry about deleting it from the microSD, or saving it on my compter, if I install other games.

lucky you people have free 3DS emulation after all (this early in the 3DS's life)....let alone being stuck to one game.

no, we don't need posts like that here.

 

[shibi]

No flashcart supports multi-rom as of this writing... So for the mean time, just enjoy the 1:1 feature of flashcarts (1 game in 1 sd card)

 

[tHciNc]

No flashcart supports multi-rom as of this writing... So for the mean time, just enjoy the 1:1 feature of flashcarts (1 game in 1 sd card)

MT card supports multirom, but thats about it, reason saves are saved to sd atm is because we are imaging roms to the microsd, once drag and drop comes into play, chances are they will possibly save to the microsd instead of the sd card

 

[stomp_442]

No flashcart supports multi-rom as of this writing... So for the mean time, just enjoy the 1:1 feature of flashcarts (1 game in 1 sd card)

Yes, all of the DS and DSi flashcarts do support multirom support, and this should be in the next Gateway3DS update. You are just stating what the Gateway3DS flashcart currently supports, which everybody that owns on already knows. You brought nothing new to this thread.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

No flashcart supports multi-rom as of this writing... So for the mean time, just enjoy the 1:1 feature of flashcarts (1 game in 1 sd card)

exactly. enjoy what you have now

 

[Enigma Hall]

less change of cards = more gateway lifetime

 

[aXXo]

less change of cards = more gateway lifetime

I don't see how that would increase Gateway's lifetime since the cards are built fairly well and rewriting the microSD card won't cause any wear on the flashcard's NAND. What actually might happen is that the spring-loading system in the card would fail, leading to dificulty inserting and removing the microSD, or you could just drop the flashcard after taking it out of the 3DS because you become so at ease while removing it so often that you forget that it's worth $80.

 

[Foxi4]

Why do people assume that MultiROM in any way translates to having multiple save states? The two issues are mutually exclusive. Same with drag and drop - you can have MultiROM without any drag and drop whatsoever.

For proper drag and drop support, the flashcart would have to have a loader supporting any of the contemporary filesystems - right now, the images are flashed 1:1 to the SD card. I'd sooner assume that the MultiROM feature the Gateway guys are working on right now is based on jumping addresses on the SD card to differentiate between different images flashed onto it, which is feasible, but certainly not intuitive or drag and drop, unless they build a manager specifically for their flashcart.

For proper drag and drop, as well as a plaethora of different features, the 3DS's homebrew scene has to be kickstarted first. We're getting there ever so slowly, but we're nowhere near that point yet.

 

[Enigma Hall]

I don't see how that would increase Gateway's lifetime since the cards are built fairly well and rewriting the microSD card won't cause any wear on the flashcard's NAND. What actually might happen is that the spring-loading system in the card would fail, leading to dificulty inserting and removing the microSD, or you could just drop the flashcard after taking it out of the 3DS because you become so at ease while removing it so often that you forget that it's worth $80.

Lol, you said no, and then explained why yes. ¬_¬.

 

[kyogre123]

I'll just leave this here:

This is what our users will soon be able to enjoy on their Gateway system:

- Integrated menu system
- Emu-Nand with up to date compatibility
- Back up your own game cartridges
- Nand based titles compatibility
- Fat32 based drag & drop Multi-Rom

And about the supposed impossibility of developing a "drag and drop" multirom at this stage, the Empty Card already has this; it's just that their game support is a complete disaster, presumably due to them using an alpha version of Gateway's multirom.

 

[Foxi4]

I'll just leave this here: (...) And about the supposed impossibility of developing a "drag and drop" multirom at this stage, the Empty Card already has this; it's just that their game support is a complete disaster, presumably due to them using an alpha version of Gateway's multirom.

As you said, it's by no means "impossible" - as long as a filesystem is supported by the cart, standard drag and drop may work perfectly fine.